, boston tea party and so on. and then of the american civil war. we knew almost everything about that. we had the battle of antitee tunnel and gettysburg and so on. into when i came here in 1957, i found i really knew a lot more about the revolution and the civil war than colleagues here, students and academics. but we never heard a word about the war of 1812. it was not mentioned, and it was not in our history. any idea why that should be? >> the speaker noted that he was educated in australia, and there was quite a comprehensive education on the topics of the american revolution and the american civil war but almost nothing on the war of 1812, and why might that be? well, the british did not tend to regard the american war of 1812 as a particular significant war at all. for the british, this was just a side show in the global war with napoleon. so for them the war of 1812 is not as important as the one that's happening on the european continent, so that might have something to do with what was taught in australia. but the fact of the matter is, it doesn't taught very much here either. i
